Thats the Deal, we call regular curing " Slow Cure", they all want freeze dried…
“Cause it’s got electrolytes” - Idiocracy Lives Today
For me its easy, we has four kinds of weed back in the day,
Skunk (sinsemilla)
Red ( Red hairs and Leaves, Slow Cure)
Gold (Dried between glass doors in hot mexican sun in one day sometimes)
Thai ( Any Sativa with bottom of branch hemp filaments tied back up around buds)
NOBODY WANTED CHLOROPHYLL
That said though, I love dehydrator and evreybody thinks I’m crazy, except I’ve seen the commercial ones and it adds triches, end of story. (Sucks It Out of Em)
How does a dehydrator create more trichs?
I hate it but I don’t know, not a scientist.
The trichome gland is just that, a gland. Capable of swelling and shrinking.
In the dehydrator, the bud changes color to a slow cure look, but alot of chlorophyll is gone.
The triches swell more is something I can say with empirical knowledge. I have a wonderful mini microscope and love to look at triches, the come out in places where there were none, they swell fat and grow in length.
You can hang it to dry or cut fresh and freeze either method will work fine it’s how you handle it once you thaw it out that makes the difference .
If your pressed for time just cut it into chunks that fit in the zip lock and freeze. When time permits thaw do your final trim then cure as normal.
Any difference in vacuum sealing, then freezing rather than jarring and freezing or even stuffing some gallon ziplocks and doing the same?
Not really unless your planning on not trimming and curing for a extended period of time . A couple 3 weeks in the freezer zip lock works if I was wanting to wait 6 months to trim and cure I’d vacuum seal in a bag .
I’ve seen pictures like this but nothing so crazy looking. This is done with UV light?
@Astrodude thats some weird shit right there. I’ll have to take your word for it because in my mind it doesn’t make any sense that it could be possible. So what you are saying is you end up with more final product when you are making concentrate using a freeze dryer?
Forgive my ignorance… is it possible for the conversion of thca into thc after a freeze dry? Or is the cannabinoid profile of the freshly harvested plant maintained?
The freeze dryer sounds great, but it will remain a dream at least until I increase my flowering area 4 fold 
28 days later I hope it’s dry. I’m going inside my dog house.
It’s frikkin cryogenics, freeze dried is proliferate, the machines are coming down in price quick because of consuption.
I threw a few fresh popcorn nugs in the freezer a couple weeks ago. Planning on taking them out Sunday, letting sit for a bit, and then jarring. After a month in the jar, going to do a side-by-side with buds from the same plant, but those which were hung to dry and then jarred for cure.
Thanks a lot everybody for your answers. I went with what was the easiest to set up and could be monitored and conrolled remotely: I hung the whole plants in the tent and turned the exhaust on periodically so I slowly made it to ~62% humidity until I came home. Lots of other interesting thoughts here for next time. Thanks! 
It has been interesting. I have enjoyed the reading. @allotment im sorry I didn’t have much to add.
that’s photoshopped. for instance look at those purple highlights, the color saturation is much too high for that exposure.
Over the course of 28+ years I’ve dried Cannabis more than a few different ways. Dry trim, wet trim, on stem, off stem…for me…I’ve found the best method is to dry the cannabis as slow as possible(for the most part)keeping the plant almost entirely intact(hung upside down, whole, without shade leaves)allowing the plant to change chlorophyll into sugars providing a far more enjoyable smoke!
I keep temps @ 65 degrees with a RH @ 60%. Over the course of multiple weeks(3-5) I will slowly lower the RH down to 55%. @ 55% RH is when the cannabis goes into its final storage container. Unless for long term storage vacuum packed into the freezer.
To fully control the drying/curing environment I use a humidifier, de-humidifier, and exhaust fan’s with a humidistat. This way it’s completely controllable/automated and can be set to within 1%.
For normal storage and final curing is use 5 gallon (HomeDepot) buckets with the airtight screw on “gamma” lids. These work great and are o-ring sealed. I burp the buckets once a day to exchange air(very important). And again for long term storage(a year or more) vacuum packed in a freezer.
By doing these few steps I’m able to produce awesome smoke that tastes amazing, easy on the lungs and burns to a silky smooth white ash…every time! 
I feel one should take as much effort(pride) into drying/curing the cannabis as they do in growing it! I’ve seen poorly grown mids with a proper dry and cure turn into some pretty decent smoke! And in the other hand have seen amazingly grown dank destroyed on the back end because it was “processed” like shit!!
You ask a bunch of folks what’s their preferred method and you’ll get a bunch of different answers…this is what I’ve found that works best for me in my experience! 
Happy growing…and curing OG
Brian(Alaskagrown)
Makes a lot of sense for small semi commercial grows. Say you’ve got a few 4x4 or 5x5 tents running to harvest once a month a freeze dryer takes up a lot less floor space and probably uses less power than a climate controlled drying room.
Excellent description of proper curing Brian .
Poor weed can become good weed with the right dry and cure.
I would like to know how chlorophyll breaks down into sugar. I get that during photosynthesis it converts water and carbon dioxide into glucose but I am wondering about the chemical process that the chlorophyll goes through when the plant dries out.
